


Once More Into Breaches I Cannot Gap

by nic_takes_Ls (nic_L)



Category: DreamSMP (Video Blogging RPF), Minecraft (Video Game), Rust (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (the canonical philza stabbing but wil lives), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon Sleepy Bois Inc - Only Wilbur and Phil are related, Editor Wilbur Soot, Fox Hybrid Wilbur Soot, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, POV Multiple, Philza POV, Philza is Wilbur Soot's Parent, Piglin Hybrid Wilbur Soot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Roleswap, SMPLive - Freeform, Skyblock Randomizer, Sleepy Bois Inc Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Technoblade POV - Freeform, Temporary Character Death, The Sky Gods, Tommy POV, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Very mild body horror, Wilbur POV, Wilbur Soot Angst, Wilbur Soot-centric, Wilbur and Tommy are still brothers in spirit dw, smpearth - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29231814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nic_L/pseuds/nic_takes_Ls
Summary: On the 16th, Wilbur has Philza stab him on a rubble-worn ledge over a crater, Tommy scrabbles to hold onto his shoulder and then the sword in his stomach turns black. But so does the tear in Wilbur's stomach, dropping the three of them into a void with a very odd (and alive) Schlatt who tells them that somehow, they've fucked up dimensions, and things proceed to become desperately wrong from there.Or, the one where Rust!Wilbur shoots DreamSMP!Wilbur and gets away with it.
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, Tommyinnit & Philza, Wilbur Soot & Philza, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Philza, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Tommyinnit & Philza & Jschlatt, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Philza, Wilbur Soot & Wilbur Soot
Comments: 58
Kudos: 171





	1. Prologue, or One More Chance to Second Guess Your Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [aideomai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aideomai/pseuds/aideomai). Log in to view. 



> Hullo! this fic/au premise is so incredibly inspired by In the Hand by aideomai, (i'm so sorry for commiting slander/desecrating against this work of art forgive me) so yeahhh multiverse shit go brrrr
> 
> also takes the idea of the dimensional doors mod's rift sword very heavily actually you know what this fic straight up stole it welp
> 
> and then quite a bit of the alternate dimension wilbur's are based off of fics/aus that i'll link and credit in end notes
> 
> also, fucking thank you to mill for ufcking making this rad au w/ me i love riftbur so much but not as muhc as youuu 
> 
> title from TTNG's Gibbon

Ashes fill the air, rubble still cascades slowly down the crater, and Wilbur Soot pulls a glittering diamond sword from a sheath at his side and stares into his father’s eyes.

“Phil.”

Philza’s stance is wide, and his arms covered in nicks of shrapnel. The man himself is still looking out at all the destruction his child the madman has wrought.

Tommy and Techno are stood as if ready to fight, but Wilbur’s movements has them both frozen, turned and looking up at the unveiled successor to the final control room.

“Philza!” Wilbur calls again, and Phil whirls around to see Wilbur standing nearly predatorily, the hand not bone-white around the sword handle curled into a claw.

“Wilbur,” He responds weakly.

The sword in Wilbur’s grip is lifted, and for a half-a-second, an incoherent thought, he thinks that Wilbur is going to fight him.

But it’s worse, and Wilbur points the sword at his own chest, brings the tip to brush his shirt.

“Wilbur, what are you doing.”

“I’m- I’m going to end this. End me. Stab me, Philza.”

Whatever wears his son’s face now pulls it into a desperate smile, tears already slipping down his face and a wild light in his blown-wide brown eyes.

“Kill me!” The shout echoes softly around the fresh crater, and Phil can see Tommy drop his sword in shock.

“Wilbur,” Phil tries to refute, but Wilbur steps forwards and slides his hands slowly from the handle to gripping the blade. Blood runs down the sword and Wilbur’s arms as the edge digs into Wilbur’s grip.

The cold metal handle is pressed into Phil’s empty arms, a shudder rolling down his spine as his fingers wrap around the sword, obvious in the metal's pristine sharpness it's been newly forged.

"Stab me, Phil- Killza. Please? I don't want to be- Don't deserve- Won't you-"

"No." Phil feels the rasp in his throat as he says it. "No, Wilbur, I'm not going to-"

"Kill Me!" Wilbur roars, a broken cry, and pushes the blade held weakly in Phil's hands into his chest, and the metal turns freezing cold, the blue of the mineral turning dark and something nearly mist-like starting to curl off of it.

Wilbur makes a small noise in his throat, and Phil flicks his gaze from his own hands to Wilbur's face, mouth parted and eyes no longer too-bright, instead dark with dread and staring at the sword now plunged in his chest.

"Wilbur- Phil!" A voice- Tommy's, Phil dully registers, rings through the silence, but both he and Wilbur simply sink to the ground, Wilbur's breaths coming in ragged.

"Techno- Techno probably has a healing pot, Wilbur, keep that in, what's the smoke- Smite? Keep the sword in, the blood-"

"It doesn't hurt," Wilbur interrupts, gaze blank and hands twitching, nails scrabbling at the blade. "This should hurt. This should hurt very much."

Wilbur clenches his hands around the sword and gasps at the cold still burning into Phil's own hands, not flinching at the sound of Tommy landing on the ledge they're on with a cloud of ender-pearl particles.

"Wilbur- Are you alright?" Tommy nearly sobs, dropping to his knees and grabbing Wilbur's shoulder.

"No- No, and this sword isn't either- What is this-"

Phil gasps, horror dawning as Wilbur begins to pull the weapon from his own stomach, expecting Wilbur to slump and for blood to soak the floor, but instead the blade comes out clean and glittering, but entirely black. A line of ink-black hovers in the air.

A tear in space.

"What the fuck." Tommy looks sick, and his hand goes pale as it clenches into Wilbur's sleeve.

"I- I think- I think you two should go." Wilbur whispers, stun-shocked and breathless. The jagged arc of black still oozing from the sword's tip grows, swallowing Wilbur slowly but surely.

"No- Wilbur, I'm not leaving- You'd just- You'd just tried to-" Tommy splutters and then chokes along with Phil as the rift tears itself larger under Wilbur's kneeling figure and he's suddenly hanging over an endless void by only Phil's arm around his, Tommy leaning half-over the chasm in space and both of his hands around theirs.

None of the three even notice when Technoblade drops his crossbow, listless, and the crowd down below flickers to life in panic.

"Wilbur, Wilbur, can you pull yourself up?" Phil's grip around Wilbur's arm is weak, slippery with blood.

Wilbur looks up at Phil, then switches his gaze to Tommy, and does his worst impersonation of a smile.

"I think it's coming from me, a bit."

Phil is still another breath, and then lets himself look at the wound in Wilbur's stomach, impossible to see as it's black as the rest of the rift. Tommy makes a quiet noise in his throat.

"I think you might have to let me go. 'S what I was kinda aiming for-"

"Shut up-" Tommy hisses.

"Look, if you don't move, I think the- The void, or whatever, is going to take you two."

Phil doesn't move his grip around Wilbur's hand, can't bring himself to hold tighter or let go.

"Phil," Tommy says lowly. "If you let go of Wilbur, I'll kill you-"

"I won't."

Phil squeezes Wilbur's hand in his tighter, and a small sob rips from both of them at once.

Tommy tucks himself into Phil's side, even as far as he's leaning just to hold Wilbur's hand, and Phil doesn't know exactly how he feels as he's waiting for this void- The biggest plot twist he'd never expected- To swallow them all whole.

He closes his eyes tightly, mutters for Tommy and Wilbur to do the same.

There's an abrupt silence, as if the world's gone mute and no light flickers behind Phil's eyes.

There's a breathy noise from Wilbur, and the weight of his son hanging from his hand is gone, only a hand clasped in another, as if they've hit ground and not realized it.

They're silent, and they're together, and then someone gasps but they're too far away, and Phil makes himself open his eyes.

Wilbur and Tommy are kneeling on- Nothing, really, but the void, huddled over themselves like they're waiting for an end. And-

There, in the void, standing, is another figure, quickly walking near.

Phil shifts in front of his boys, shoulders high and defensive.

The figure- Phil isn't close enough to even say they're human, pauses a foot away and sways slightly.

"Wilbur? Is that you?"

The voice is all-too familiar, but also incredibly wrong. The last time Phil has heard it was when the voice and Wilbur were teenagers.

Also, the voice is dead.

Wilbur jerks up, stumbles to his feet with the sword in hand, and lets his eyes blink into the nothing. Tommy similarly opens his eyes with a flinch and peers into the void.

"I-"

"Wilbur!" The figure rushes forwards and pulls Wilbur into a hug, leaving Phil and Tommy reeling on the floor, and Wilbur with a face of terror. "G-d, I was so fucking worried, you vanished and had the sword and everything-"

The person pulls away and then is quiet, before pulling a torch from their side and lighting it with a match.

"Oh. That's not you," Says the voice and face of one decidedly not-dead J. Schlatt.

  
  



	2. Come back, let's settle this up… …and down my spine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote most of this in like one day what the fuck
> 
> n yeah. this is where we get into the big au shit ahaha mmmm (and healing!)

“You’re dead,” Tommy repeats numbly from Wilbur’s side.  
  


“Heard you the first time, kid.” Schlatt replies without missing a beat, torch in his hand held aloft and leading them slowly but surely through the void. “So, it should be kinda over this way, I think, if I remember correctly, and if I don’t remember correctly, then fuck, we’re off to a bad start-”  
  


Wilbur can’t stop staring at the back of his head, or more accurately, the twitching pale-furred goat ears and the crown of horns that curl around them, red-brown at the edges where the only light is cast in his hands.  
  


He talks and the ears move with every expression in his voice, bearing easily Schlatt’s heart on his sleeve. It’s fucking strange.  
  


After Schlatt had pulled quickly and awkwardly away from Wilbur that first time, the abrupt meeting of their eyes was the most unbelievable thing Wilbur had ever seen; He remembered watching the drunken man’s body slump to the ground, his chest still with one hand curled into his shirt over his heart.  
  


And then Schlatt had flickered his own gaze over Wilbur’s face and his face shuttered right as Wilbur noticed all the things that made this Schlatt very different. (Tommy also had screamed just a little in the background, but the pair were respectively too caught up in the shock to flinch.  
  


This- version- of Schlatt has the horns and ears, obviously, but his face is also clean-shaven, eyes gold and pupils slit and yet a more relaxed expression about him. Even in the pale light by his struck torch, his hair was lighter in colour, clipped shorter and neater and his face visibly older but not as artificially aged by alcohol as the Schlatt Wilbur watched die was.   
  


He’d looked as if he’d never drowned himself in a presidency, or alcohol, or in hate.  
  


Then Tommy had thrust himself in front of Wilbur and Phil dug his hand into Wilbur’s shoulder and Wilbur had snapped back to life, immediately on edge, sword in hand at the imposter’s throat. Then Schlatt stumbled back and said, “Oh, not another one of those,” and the trio paused and let him speak.  
  
  
Wilbur still isn’t sure that he’s happy or not that he didn’t plunge the sword in Schlatt’s neck. He sure as hell doesn’t believe the goat-horned man’s story.   
  


“-and like- Most of this is void, but it turns out there’s some areas where it’s just random actual landscape poking out of it- Probably the void itself slipping through, I don’t know, but I did make a little camp over this way-” Schlatt is still speaking, rambling, when Wilbur finally tears his gaze from the back of his horns and scowls to the side, sneers at the darkness and speaks.  
  
  
“ _Why_ , exactly, were you and your Wilbur messing around with dimensions, a-and rifts and things again? You told us about when the- other- _other_ Wilbur used the sword and you could see mine poking through the void and all, but-”  
  
  
Schlatt cuts Wilbur off with a wave of his hand and looks back with a smile, easy-going and relaxed and very very wrong, if Wilbur has anything to say about it.  
  


“Yeah, yeah. We were helping Karl on his time-travel research, y’know? He can’t read enchantment, and he had all these books that once he brought from the Inbetween he couldn’t read or something, and me and Wilbur- _My Wilbur_ , had nothing better to do.”  
  
  
“Karl- Time-travel?” Phil’s voice is incredulous from beside Tommy, where the three had paused in their tracks at Schlatt’s words.  
  
  
Schlatt turns back from where he stands ahead in the void and is met with blank stares.  
  
  
“Uh. Shit. When are guys from again?” He asks, the goat ears tilted back, almost apologetically.  
  
  
“Where the fuck are you _from_ ?” Tommy spits, the most vitriolic he’s been in the time since they’d fell through the void. (Since Wilbur tried to kill himself, he doesn’t let himself think.) “‘Me and Wilbur?’ Karl and- Whatever the fuck that was? You became president- and- and exiled me and Wilbur, and- and _died_ , and-”  
  


“Did none of that happen for you?” Phil says, quiet and off-kilter by Tommy’s side.   
  


Schlatt blinks at Phil, eyes darting across his shoulders before flicking up to his face. “Oh. No, not the dying part. In the camarvan- But- Yeah. I was president, for a bit. Not a particularly good one. Sorry. Wh-When- What date are you from?”  
  
  
Wilbur opens his hand which had curled tight at the mention of the camarvan, and stutters softly, “It’s- It’s November 16th, and-”  
  
  
Schlatt’s eyes go wide.  
  
  
“Oh. We’re past that. We- The 16th was-” He falters off, leaving the sentence open and waiting like the feeling Wilbur’s had in his chest since he’d forged his sword.  
  
  
So his Wilbur is past _that_ . So his Wilbur had _lived_.  
  


This Wilbur tightens his grip around the sword he hasn’t let go of, the one meant for him, and the other hand goes around his stomach, numb and cold where the blade once sunk. He resists asking Schlatt if the Wilbur in his universe or dimension or whatever didn’t go paranoid like he knows he is, like he’d never been bitter and cold. How the two of them are friends again.  
  


“The 16th is over.” Schlatt says, like _The 16th_ is an event of its own. “A-and the rest- It’s like I’d said, Wilbur found a bit about jumping dimensions rather than time and-” The man whirls on his heels and walks through the void, torch bright in his hand and slightly trembling, forcing the trio to follow to hear his words. His words gain back their smoothness as he talks.  
  
  
“He got a little hyperfixated as usual and fucked it up. He made a rift sword, but something- Not sure what yet, but something got messed up and so when he cut that rift it affected your sword and the rift itself, and we got separated-”  
  
  
Wilbur sighs, just as a pale rise of- something, appears over the horizon of the void.  
  
  
“And now you think that the Wilburs in the multiverse or whatever are mixed up.”  
  
  
“Probably. And now your sword is probably the only thing that could get my Wilbur back and also get you guys home.” Schlatt turns and gives Wilbur a smile like there’s some inside joke they’re both in before blinking and jerking his gaze back over to the supposed camp Schlatt had set up. “And yeah, here we go, homebase.”  
  


Homebase is as if someone cut a chunk out of a plains biome with an abandoned village in it and superimposed it into this empty void of a realm. As in it literally looks like that. The grass is green and there are three trees and the sky is still void.  
  
  
Schlatt leads Wilbur, Tommy, and Philza to one of the houses in better condition, a single torch hung above the wall and freshly lit, the only damage being a chunk of window and wall removed unnaturally, as if the mass in that area had been vanished. It’s empty and unfurnished, but it’s better than nothing.  
  


Schlatt turns to them, smiling, as if a little proud and pleased of his found little place of not-darkness, and Wilbur feels a twist in his stomach when he notices Schlatt’s seeking gaze alights on Phil especially, who sits on the oak floorboard with his legs crossed. Schlatt’s looking at Phil like he knows him, Wilbur thinks, familiar.  
  
  
He possibly does, his head says after, and it makes Wilbur all the more sick. The first time he’d seen Phil in years was the disappointed, mourning look in his eyes in a room of Wilbur’s own sins. He wishes he never made it, and then bites his lip harshly between his teeth and shoves down that small whisper of ‘maybe now you could fix things’ under a blanket of self-loathing and a chorus in his head of ‘never meant to be’.  
  
  
“So-” Tommy says, and the sudden voice startles Wilbur into noticing he’s the only one still on his feet, Tommy and Schlatt joining Phil on the floor for possibly as long as he’s been stuck in his head.  
  


“How- uh, how are we supposed to get your Wilbur and fix this dimension shit and go home, exactly?” Tommy’s arm is half on Phil’s knee and the other hand is stretched on the floor to where Wilbur stands, and as Wilbur sits, the hand comes to grip the heel of his shoe. Wilbur doesn’t try to move it.  
  
  
Here Schlatt opens his mouth and then pauses, his golden eyes on the ink-stained blade in Wilbur’s hand.  
  
  
“Okay, so. So. Uh. I don’t think your Rift Blade is exactly a normal one.”  
  
  
Tommy scoffs. “It’s obviously not a fucking normal sword, idio-”  
  
  
“Not a regular Rift Blade either, Toms,” Schlatt says without heat, and yet Tommy and Wilbur flinch at the nickname from Schlatt’s, of all people’s, mouth. The man seems to notice their frozen expressions and makes a weak smile.  
  
  
“Sorry, Tommy. Not a typical Rift Blade either, Tommy. Yours only turned black at the tips after my Wilbur used his own messed-up Rift Blade. So, very much so unfortunately, I don’t think we can control where we go. But the good thing about rifts is that blades should only be able to create rift scars, and that means we go from one universe back to here, and shouldn’t really get lost.”  
  
  
“And that means that we’re going to be just- Endlessly scouring universes until we find- A Wilbur who’s in the wrong universe and just. What.” Phil drawls, shoulders slumped.  
  
  
“Uh. I think that the sword should only link to dimensions that have been messed around with and near a Wilbur already. And I think- That-”  
  
  
Schlatt brings up a hand to scratch the back of his neck, tugs on the string of his dark hoodie.  
  
  
“What?” Tommy asks, one eyebrow lifted.  
  
  
“Uh. We might have to manually bring the Wilburs to here to keep them from like ruining the actual dimension and shit. Just until I find my Wilbur and can fix everything.” Schlatt finishes, hands out and pleading. “Please? It’s in all of our best interests, a-and actual safety of life or whatever shit.”  
  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Wilbur watches Tommy turn to Phil, a small nod from Phil before the pair turn to Wilbur. They look at him like he’s a skittish cat, wary. He rolls his eyes.  
  
  
“Fine. ‘S not like we can leave or anything.” Wilbur mutters, and runs his hand over the flat of the sword blade at his side.  
  
  
“Does that mean we should start now?” Phil stands and pulls Tommy to his feet, Wilbur glancing away from their hands shy to reach for him and climbs to his feet facing away.  
  
  
Schlatt shrugs, somehow still impeccable cool in the face of all this.  
  
  
“Sure!” He says. He leads them back outside, the grass underfoot and the sky ever still nothing, sun-less and star-less and empty of light, but Schlatt’s torch isn’t needed to see, not really.  
  
  
Tommy and Phil stop when Schlatt does, and Schlatt nudges Wilbur in the arm gently, a thoughtless move that leaves Wilbur unsettled and Schlatt giving an apologetic glance.  
  
  
“All you have to do is-” Schlatt makes a slashing motion with his arm, a quick smile tossed to Tommy before it’s erased with a grimace. “Uh- Slash and just literally think about making a rift scar.”  
  
  
Wilbur gasps a breath. The last time he’d touched something with this sword it was himself and it was deep into his gut and it burned before it was nothing but cold and numb and then he’d looked down and he was made of void.  
  
  
Tommy and Phil step backwards while Schlatt stands beside Wilbur, not-too-close but still leaving him unsettled. Tommy’s face is twisted, lips pinched and grimaced, the soot still on his sleeve dark from Wilbur’s last orchestrative act of L’Manberg. Phil is looking away.  
  
  
With a shudder, Wilbur brings the sword into two hands and over his head before swinging it in an arc before him, a slight drag and weight on the blade tearing dark and rending before him.  
  
  
The sword hits the ground and Wilbur brings the blade back up, heaving and on the brink of tears for reasons he cannot say.  
  
  
Tommy and Phil are staring at Wilbur now, fearful gazes on his hands flicking up to his face and turning relieved, as if they’d thought Wilbur was going to plunge the weapon into himself this time as well.  
  
  
He bites his tongue viciously, blood welling up in his mouth.   
  


He has a _purpose_ , right now. He’s not going to leave them to- To die, here, out in the void. Not them.  
  
  
“Nice.” Schlatt says, defusing the untapped tension welling up in Wilbur’s blood, the boiling of it fading as Schlatt steps up and sticks his hand through the darkness. “Who wants to go first?”  
  
  
Wilbur, Tommy, and Philza turn to Schlatt, blink blankly.  
  
  
“Well. We’re all going to have to hold hands, but. Y’know.”  
  
  
Schlatt’s sheepish smile is met with silence.  
  
  
“Okay, fine, fuck off, I’ll go.”  
  


* * *

  
Slipping through the rift scar is the same as last time, not a sound or feeling specific to it but the sudden tingle of sun hitting Wilbur’s face and the cool air scented with pine needles making their way into his lungs feeling familiar.  
  
  
Wilbur opens his eyes.  
  
  
Oh. That’s why it would be familiar.  
  
  
Newfoundland’s tall pines and countless shades of green roll on for miles, a lake shining in the distance and a railroad track starting at a nearby shore. There’s Wilbur’s old house in the distance, spruce wood recognisable from even this far off,  
  
  
“We’re- This is Earth,” Tommy says, stun-shocked and eyes wide.  
  
  
Phil is beside him, head tilted back to the sky and a faint smile on his face. “Huh. We are, aren’t we?”  
  


“I’d never been to Earth before,” Schlat remarks, small and in wonder.  
  
  
The wind blows and some of Wilbur’s half-matted curls are tossed into his face, but he doesn’t bother pushing them away, just turning so that the wind blows them back again. The landscape, as natural to him as now as it was years ago, settles into his bones with the feeling of nostalgia and memories of flying, of fighting, of ultimately still being alone.  
  
  
L’Manberg wasn’t the first place he had built from the ground. But it was the one filled with people who really loved it as their own, where he could feel the land loving him back. Wilbur had settled on Newfoundland’s shores, made a home ontop of her but never in her, never of her.  
  
  
There’s a glitter of red, at first a flower, Wilbur thinks, half-hidden by the trees, but the flicker of red moves and he realizes it’s a fox, slipping quick and yet unhurried through the bushes on the forest floor. He walks to it, slowly, softly, leaving Phil staring into the horizon and Tommy giving a short, panicked look over his shoulder before catching the fox’s tail in his sights too.  
  
  
The fox is the same kind he’d seen back in the pine woods through the way to Pogtopia, the same that he’d seen milling around the spawn, and pointed and fire-orange and fur sleek and tipped at the tail.  
  
  
Then a small giggle, strange in the way it’s half-faded, distant and rolling in the back of his head. And a grey shape, two legged and short and running after the fox, and the grey shape is probably making the giggle, Wilbur thinks, and then he hears his own voice call, “Fundy, come back!”  
  
  
The figure turns, and the figure is a fox-kit on two legs and wearing a shirt Wilbur remembers Fundy wearing as a child and then he notices the figure is a ghost, translucent and grey and ashes where a fox would be fire and he watches himself walk from around a tree. The ghost leaps into his own arms and Wilbur meets his own gaze.  
  
  
“Oh.” Other Wilbur says. The ghost climbs up his shoulder and wraps their tail around his neck. “I assume this has something to do with me being- Here, again?”  
  


Other Wilbur has tired grey-brown eyes, shorter cropped hair with a dusting of silver and the fingers of his hand are thin and long, pale and worn, reaching up to the transparent fox tail around his neck almost unconsciously. He wears a grey sweater with a white collar peeking out, glasses rounded and silver-rimmed on his face. He’s definitely older, than Wilbur now, and older than even Schlatt. His face isn’t any particular expression, maybe a little nervous, a little wary, but exhaustion and an echo of some kindness is on his face.   
  


Tommy grabs onto Wilbur’s arm, squeezes tight. It’s the first direct contact he’s made since they ended up in the void.  
  
  
“Uh. Probably. Who- Who’s that?” He asks, gesturing to the smokey, fading grey of the fox around the other Wilbur’s neck.  
  
  
“This is Fundy.”  
  
  
Wilbur jolts slightly where he stands at the words, Tommy raises an eyebrow.  
  
  
“Fundy- He’s not a fox. That- That is a dead fox-boy.”  
  
  
Other Wilbur looks at the kit peering back up at him on his shoulder, their gazes meeting and Wilbur’s becoming a bit more solemn.  
  
  
“He is. My Fundy died a while ago.” One hand comes up to brush over- Fundy’s, Wilbur forced the thought, ears. “But he’s still around. He’s tethered to me, I suppose, which is why he’s here as well.”  
  
  
With the last words, the approaching footsteps of Schlatt and Phil are heard, and the gathered people and one ghost turn to meet them.  
  
  
“Oh.” Schlatt sounds slightly winded at the sight of the other Wilbur and Fundy standing there, and Phil just freezes.   
  


“Hullo,” Other Wilbur says. Fundy chitters and jumps off of his father’s back and to his side, eyes locked on the blade in Wilbur’s unsteady hand.   
  


“Uh,” Schlatt falters and blinks once more at Fundy before a wounded expressions crosses his face. “Why’s Fundy- You know. What happened?”  
  
  
Other Wilbur flits his gaze around the forest clearing, meeting gazes until it rests on Wilbur’s. He opens his mouth to speak, but the red fox as seen earlier tears across the bed of pine needles, something in its mouth, and Fundy makes a noise before chasing after it.  
  
  
“Oh dear.” Other Wilbur brings a hand up to his mouth and scrubs the other through his curls, sighing.   
  


“What- What’s the fox got?” Tommy asks, eyes darting after Fundy and the fox.  
  
  
“Probably his necklace. He keeps taking it off and playing with it, and kept teasing the fox with it earlier.” The other Wilbur sighs and folds his glasses into his pocket.  
  
  
Phil coughs and stutters out, “I- Me and Tommy can go grab him, if you’d like?”   
  


Wilbur shifts uncomfortably as the other, older Wilbur nods, grateful.  
  
  
“So if your Fundy isn’t a fox, where did he come from?” He asks later, standing beside Wilbur with Schlatt gazing on, almost comparing the two from the side.  
  
  
“Uh,” Wilbur stutters and blinks hard. “Fundy’s- He’s mine, I guess. And a woman named Sally, but mostly mine. And. He’s human.”  
  
  
The other Wilbur tilts his head, considering. “I had told Fundy that his mother was a shape-shifter named Sally.”  
  
  
Schlatt splutters, hand over his mouth before removing it at the two curious, brown-eyes looks he gets at his reaction. “I thought- Where I’m from- She _was_ a shape-shifter. Fundy still has the fox ears and tail and all too.”   
  


“Oh.” Other Wilbur says. “Curious. Is he still alive then, where you’re from?”  
  
  
Wilbur flinches at the words. “He is. Fundy’s alive.” The words are oddly defensive, even to him.  
  
  
Schlatt pauses before nodding in agreement.  
  
  
At the sudden silence, the Wilbur in the grey sweater sits down leaning against a pine tree, hair catching on loose bits of bark.  
  
  
“My Fundy had died from Dream.” The words are sudden and make Wilbur’s arms tense, his heart leap, chest squeeze.  
  
  
“Wh- Why?”  
  
  
The other Wilbur picks up a still-green pine needle from the floor, twists it between his fingers.  
  
  
“I’m still not entirely sure. I think it was because he was a spy. And because Dream wanted to hurt me. Use me, maybe.”  
  
  
There’s a pit in Wilbur’s chest, dark and heavy and pressing down on his lungs and ripping the bottom of his stomach out that the fresh bitter-cold air of the pines cannot fill.  
  
  
“He- Spying- I thought he had really-”  
  
  
Schlatt makes a noise in his throat. “Fundy? Wilbur- For me, at least, he was never really- With me, I think. Did he not tell you?”  
  
  
Wilbur grabs the lapels of his trenchcoat in one hand, the hilt of the Rift Blade in the other. They’re both clenched so tight he can see the lack of blood in his knuckles.  
  
  
“He told me. But he didn’t actually speak. I thought- I thought he’d only changed to side with Pogtopia once he saw Schlatt was sick. He burned the flag I’d sewn, broke the walls I’d fortified- I thought he’d disowned me-”  
  
  
A sting comes to Wilbur’s eyes, pressure builds in his head, his chest heaves with the breaths suddenly rushing in-  
  
  
And the next thing he knows, his head is laying half in the other Wilbur’s lap, there’s a hand running up and down soothingly pressing on his spine, and the air in his throat is so clear, so weightless unlike every breath he’s taken for nearly years.  
  
  
There’s his own voice from a different throat, telling him to breathe in and out in time, shushing and calm and quiet and the pines don’t sway in the wind and neither does the voice. Schlatt isn’t around, but Wilbur doesn't bother asking where he is.  
  
  
The other Wilbur sighs through his nose. “Being here is- Is painful, I think.”  
  
  
“Here?” Wilbur croaks back to the older shade of himself.  
  
  
“Mhm. Both- Alive and here-here, Newfoundland. There are too many foxes, for one. The pine trees are the same kinds I see looking out my window. l And- I’ve moved on, from Earth, a while ago. We both have. You actually blew up L’Manberg, I’m pretty sure, so it sounds like we’re both over that too. And to be truly fair, I’ve been over being alive quite a while. I know you are. You didn’t lose anyone but yourself, and that can hurt just as bad. I stick around because Fundy is tethered to me. That’s what I tell myself, at least. But everyone you know, you touch, you breathe the same air as is connected to you in some inevitable string. Tommy’s trying so very hard to hang on to his end, I think.”  
  
  
Wilbur holds his breath, looks out on a forest he once knew like the back of his hand.  
  
  
“I know that’s not what you want to hear right now. Do you want to get up? I’m pretty sure that the rest of your group have found Fundy.”  
  
  
Wilbur sits up, is pulled to his feet by the older version of himself. “How’d you know?”  
  
  
A distant shout, Tommy’s obviously, is heard, and the two doppelgangers of each other make their way to where Schlatt, Phil, and the slightly-floating Fundy are watching Tommy wrestle with a fox, something small and corded in its mouth. Tommy makes a growling noise louder than the fox’s and then holds the leather necklace in his fist, face victorious before the fox scrabbles its way from his grip. Fundy claps and chuffs.  
  
  
“God, that took much longer than I thought that would.” Tommy grumbles, red-faced and clambering to his knees before dropping the necklace into Fundy’s spectral cupped paws.  
  
  
“Thank you,” Other Wilbur says, as quiet and calm-sounding as ever, Fundy darting to him in a heartbeat.   
  


“Does this mean we can go- Not home, I mean, but to the void now?” Phil turns to Schlatt, who shrugs.  
  
  
“Sure. Wilbur and- Uh, Wilbur, are you ready?”  
  
  
Tommy scoffs. “Can we give the other Wilbur a nickname or something so this doesn’t get out of hand?”  
  
  
Schlatt snaps his fingers together, grins. “Not bad. Any ideas?”  
  
  
The other Wilbur looks between their faces and shrugs, listless. “I’m fine with whatever.”  
  
  
“Bitc-”  
  
  
“Dadbur,” Phil interrupts Tommy, gesturing to Fundy’s paws clutched into the back of the grey sweater, his mist-made fox’s tail wrapped around the man’s leg.  
  


“Dadbur,” The other- Dadbur’s eyes soften slightly, he looks down at Fundy who stares right back up at him. “That’s nice.”  
  


“Alright, come on, Dadbur,” Tommy says, glaring at Fundy draped once more over the man’s shoulder before turning to Wilbur and gesturing to the sword loosely in hand. “Please keep an eye on Fundy. He’s so fucking hard to find, I swear.”  
  
  
Fundy yips and his teeth part in a fanged smile.  
  
  
“See? Right there! He doesn’t even make noise when he does that!”  
  
  
Wilbur blinks, turning to Fundy and Dadbur, who both look rather pleased with themselves.  
  
  
“But I-”  
  
  
Fundy meets Wilbur’s eyes, winks.  
  
  
“Oh.”  
  
  
“Come on, Wilbur. Do the magic swordy thing, we need to expand our Wilbur collection,” Schlatt laughs, and so Wilbur does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic/AU referenced:
> 
> rift!Schlatt: lmaooo u don't get to know yet, L!!! L!!!!
> 
> Dadbur + Ghost Fundy: [ sins of the father (i broke all my bones that day i found you) by ryter ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269930%E2%80%9D)
> 
> next up on Once More Into Breaches I Cannot Gap:
> 
> rustbur makes good on that promise to shoot riftbur and get away with it

**Author's Note:**

> Updates aren't scheduled, but not too infrequent i hope.
> 
> this prologue should be one of the shorter chapters


End file.
